Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

31 May 2015

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 43

Dear Ms. Bostic,

This letter is in response to a letter dated 5/19/15, postmarked 5/28/2015, from the Publication Review Committee Chair Fay Lassiter regarding the disapproval of issue 43 (March/April 2015) of the newsletter Under Lock & Key. I am writing to obtain an independent review of this decision.

The letter to publisher cites page 9 of the newsletter as the source of the problem, with the reason for censorship being “encourages violence and insurrection.” Ironically, the article on page 9 is about prisoners in Georgia who were peacefully refusing food in protest of violations of their First, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Such peaceful actions are organized in a conscious effort to avoid any kind of violence or insurrection. It is troublesome that someone in your department felt that it was justified to violate the First Amendment rights of MIM Distributors in order to suppress information about people organizing peacefully against the violation of Constitutional rights. As a government official, the person making this decision has sworn to uphold the very Constitution that these people in Georgia are working to have upheld themselves.

In light of this obvious misuse of the words “violence” and “insurrection” I hope that you will overturn this decision to censor Under Lock & Key No. 43 in North Carolina prisons. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,